Jaime Gianna Picano
grew up on a ranch outside of Napa, California, and started writing very young. Initially a novelist, she self-published her first book, The Mood Ring Adventure, while in high school. She attended the Educational Program for Gifted Youth in creative writing at Stanford University for four summers. Currently a creative writing minor at the University of Pennsylvania, she is, she writes, « inspired by the mundane, most of her work concentrating on experiences in her day–to-day life. »
Audio: Jaime Gianna Picano reads "Ode to Frats" and "The City of Opportunity"
Ode to Frats
I almost didn't recognize
you in noon's
bright light,
lining the walk like stony secrets
I want to know.
Exclusive resorts:
lion statues and
picket fences guard
the entrance to
backward hats
Foreman grills,
and leather couches on
the lawn.
I can't help but gawk
from the my straight
cobble path
thinking of what I'd give
to stop by and laugh
with you and the guys,
to skip Econ,
to pass off my life like
a Frisbee whirring
between boys that
look more like
gods.
Oh I know you,
the one with the
moose that hangs
above the mantle
watching us make mistakes,
but never judging,
maybe guarding
the display of fine cigars
as a faceless god attempts
a kegstand in pink shorts and
boating shoes.
In you, college's left ventricle,
beautiful, liquid life surges, your
bright red blood—Jungle Juice—
raising the dead;
show me how to live,
like you, and with you, simply
in your society where the moral
code is blurred like vision
and anything
is climbable.
Oh! Oasis in this
desert of darkness
and confusion—
lighthouse in the fog—
is that you? Beckoning
to me with your crowds
spilling out of you
onto the street,
Or are you just a trick
of the mind, a
taunting mirage of real
hard, life, irresistible fruit
the fleshy apple, not
as fulfilling as
promised. But I
can't forget the times
you've been so kind to
take me in when I've wandered
without direction,
nourish and revive me
with the pulsing thump of
house music
give my life purpose
dance and laughter
if only until dawn.
You are day
but mostly night, Helios
in his chariot driving
the passage of time
forcing the week into
the weekend
standing majestically
stony bodies, watching,
looming over me
humbling and indulging—
lacrosse balls fly like
lightning bolts as
boys lounge on cloud-like
sofas: the closest thing to
Mount Olympus.
The City of Opportunity
In the City of
Opportunity there's a
beauty parlor where Jen
sits and files nails all
day long in
a blind fury
ranting about
her son, Michael who plays too
many video games
and never goes to school
and sometimes
she rants about this one lady
who comes in and
always tries to rip her
off;
Jen says she will never
give her the good
acrylic.
Across the street
at Home Depot
the police drive by
every so often to scatter
the groups of men
who loiter
looking for a contractor
to come up and say "Hey boys
I've got a job for
you today."
Here in the City,
there's a highway cutting
right through
the middle,
splitting its gut like a thin
slice
separating east
and west
two arms—mirror images
attached to the same
body but still gripped
in war.
Off this highway there's
a sign that says the city
is building parks
beautiful parks, but
I'm told never to take Lizzy
there
ever, because her little
feet—soft peaches—might
dance upon used
needles in the sand.
And there's a man
who lives under a tarp
in the delta
where the reeds are really
thick so no one ever goes there—
except to fish—
I only drive there when I
take the ferry, when
I must show my ticket to that
tired man and get on
the boat that doesn't
even look like
it will make it to the
other side of the bay.
But the lampposts,
the new street lights,
are really nice
tracing the roads of the
City like poppies
springing up
the copper glow of
their heads fighting
away the darkness
and the shattered
glass
little wishing stars
that burn through
the night
constant reminders that
dawn is
inevitable.